Venezuelan writer Israel Centeno draws troubling comparisons between the government-tolerated militias in Venezuela and Benito Mussolini’s shock troops. These armed militias are alleged to be responsible for the growing number of violent crimes.

In this week’s Night Watch Venezuelan writer Israel Centeno traces the history of violence in Venezuela from the turn of the 20th century up to the present. “Venezuela is a cocktail of poverty, injustice, resentment, a rentier mentality, and clientelistic wealth.”

In this interview, Israel Centeno sits down with Sampsonia Way to talk about his new book Bamboo City (a hybrid text that moves smoothly between poetry and fiction), the translation process, and upcoming publications.

In this week’s Night Watch column, writer Israel Centeno reflects on the transformation a true revolutionary undergoes once he attains power: he becomes an “agent of the new imposed order.” A contradiction only resolved by “totalitarian requisition.”

“All displacement is natural until the ulterior motives of a government make it unnatural.” In this week’s Night Watch column, Venezuelan writer Israel Centeno reflects on the relationships between time, memory, and life in exile.

In this interview, writer and journalist Maria Elena Lavaud talks to us about the state of freedom of expression in Venezuela. The author several books, Lavaud is also the host of the TV talk show En Privado for Globovisión.

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About Sampsonia Way

Sampsonia Way is an online magazine sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh that seeks to protect and advocate for writers who may be endangered, to educate the public about threats to writers and literary expression, and to create a community in which endangered writers thrive and literary culture is a valued part of life.